Early marriage among girls on the rise [Archives:2006/943/Local News]
By: Ismail Al-Ghabri
SANA'A, April 30 ) A field study revealed last month that child marriage among girls reached 52.1%, compared to 6.7% among males. The study conducted by the Woman and Development Study Center, affiliated to Sana'a University; on a sample of 1495 couples argued that there is a huge age gap between the spouses.
The study, which established a comparison between ages of spouses in the their first marriage through three generations, disclosed that marriage age raised gradually from an average of 10.24 years to 14.70 years for women and from 20.97 to 21.54 years for men. It indicated that marriage age varies from one geographical area to another, confirming that girls in Hudeida and Hadramout could marry as young as 8 years old, or ten years old in Mukalla.
Concerning the marital relations, the study showed that there is a higher prevalence of divorce among women married early. Also that more than one marriage by men married to women below 18 years and remarriage of divorced girls accepted but extremely difficult, especially in Sayoun region.
Experiences of wives below 18 years, as found by the study team indicated that the wives are generally unprepared for a sexual relationship and coercion into sex and lack of information about sex, sexual and reproductive health and contraception as well as lack of treatment of reproductive complications and Sexually Transmitted Diseases. There are also consequences from the mental health point of view as young mothers generally have poor skills and capacity to care for babies leading to anguish and anxiety among young mothers and suffer from feel a sense of insecurity. Moreover their feelings of intimacy and affection get affected because of early marriage.
The study showed that 19% of total maternal mortality is among women in 15-19 age group and that median miscarriage reaches 0.8% among women below 18 and 0.56% among women over 18 years of age. There are other maternal complications according to the study especially that about 65% women do not receive any reproductive health services which increases the prevalence of fistula, anemia and malnutrition among young (expecting & lactating) mothers.
According to the study, 48.7% of Yemen's population is below 15 years of age of which over 50% girls are likely to be married before 18 years of age. Of the study sample 381 people said that poverty is the primary reason behind child marriage while social traditions and values constitute another reason for the phenomenon, as parents prefer their daughters to get married in order to avoid any immoral deviation. Other reasons such as fear their daughters to enter the age of spinsterhood, or that the parents are lured into marrying their daughters at a young age by rich men proposing to marry their daughters.
The study added that the average marriage age in the three governorates is to increase from 9 to 15 years during the 30 years to come. The study findings indicated that 1420 of a total number of 1495 women say they pursue work at home or in the sectors of trade and agriculture. Some of them got married before age 18. The study revealed that 564 never had an access to education while 189 others hardly read and write.
About 32.91 percent of the study's male sample hold the view that one of the causes of early marriage is the financial facilities of families who consider the source of income and enough finance as a condition for marrying their daughters event at early age. Some poor families tend to merchandize their daughters for marriage as soon as they reach the teenage years, and this fact was confirmed by 388 of the surveyed people who pointed out that families merchandize their girls for marriage at early age for poverty.
The study stated that families believe that girls constitute an extra burden on the family while boys help add to the family income.
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